One in six consumers owns and use a wearable device. If there’s a tale that statistic tells, aside from that of spiking consumer interest in personal health, it’s the fact that far from the early days when it was more of a niche technology, wearable tech is now making a bold and dramatic entrance into the health care sector.

As the distinction between wearable tech -- everything from smartwatches to fitness bands -- and actual medical technology wanes thinner, the former continues to establish itself as an indispensable consumer asset. But it’s not just consumers who are leaning in and setting up to exploit the many benefits ensnared in the wearable tech sector. Businesses and startups are as well.

Bridging The Unseen Gap

In the last few years, there has been a cultural shift (and technological) shift from wearables focused on promoting wellness to those designed to foster real-time tracking and monitoring of patient vital signs. Backed by concurrent advancements in the fields of the internet of thing (IoT) and software development, the current itinerary of wearable devices have the potential to function as an integrated electronic health record system, only this time without the inherent inefficiencies of traditional EHR systems.

Deficiencies in communication both between medical hardware and counterpart software solutions and between medical EHR systems has been a rate-limiting factor in the industry’s sustained push toward phasing out episodic health care in favor of continuous patient care. By virtue of the extensive data they collect and curate, wearable tech can leapfrog conventional EHR systems and, in so doing, escalate the health sector to a heightened state of interoperability, one where seamless communication and knowledge sharing among its constituent factions prevail.

Aside from surviving the transition from episodic to continuous patient care, there is great potential behind such a system. Among other things, knowledge sharing and vertical integration between component factions of the health care industry allow the system to function as a composite whole. This, in turn, drives innovation, productivity and efficiency on a broader scale.

Efficient Health Care And Better Cost Savings

By current estimates, the next 25 years should see wearable technology prosper a global cost savings of about $200 billion in the health care sector. This cost savings is in part down to the increasingly accurate predictive capability of wearable technologies. It is a known fact that wearable technologies working in tandem with artificial intelligence (AI) can predict the onset of otherwise quiescent disease conditions, like those affecting the heart, before they manifest clinically. This, in turn, will allow patients to seek cheaper and more effective treatment options with better prognosis, thus saving them the burden of pursuing long, drawn-out and expensive treatment procedures.

However, it's not just the end patient who stands to gain from this renewed approach to spotting illnesses. Wearable technology has the potential to lower hospital costs by as much as 16% in the next five years. Hospital CEOs can leverage this to lower operating costs in their domains. Their counterparts in other sectors can also pursue better wearable-dependent life and health insurance packages for their staff. For insurance companies themselves, integrating wearable tech into their insurance plans invariably translates to a crop of healthier clients and, by extension, fewer claims.

A Pathway To Even Better Health Care Commodities

Wearable technologies and their derivatives are also propagating a cultural shift in how conventional drugs and therapies are formulated and delivered. 2017 saw the debut of the first FDA-approved pill with a packaged sensor for tracking patient usage. The Abilify MyCite as it called allows patients and physicians to monitor daily dosage and consumption actively. It promises to be especially useful in the treatment of disease conditions like diabetes and those related to mental health where strict compliance to dosage regimens is critical for successful management.

Zephyr’s Anywhere’s BioPatch tracks patient minute-by-minute vital signs and overall physiological state as opposed to the conventional eight-hour window obtainable without similar technologies. Like Biopatch, several other therapeutic wearables are becoming increasingly popular with patients worldwide. Their success and continued market adoption have created a whole new manufacturing and sales industry in the health care sector.

In the grand scheme of things, what the health sector is experiencing now with wearables are baby steps compared to what the future holds. As innovation and practicality continue to drive the wearable tech industry, expect even greater exploits tailgated by strong consumer and investor interest.